


cirque du pénombre

by kalypsobean



Category: Forgotten Realms, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Circus, Fantastic Racism, M/M, aerial dancing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-14
Updated: 2015-04-14
Packaged: 2018-03-22 23:06:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3746965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kalypsobean/pseuds/kalypsobean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Opening night of the new Cirque production in which Legolas and new cast member Drizzt are featured performers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	cirque du pénombre

**Author's Note:**

  * For [PhynixCaskey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhynixCaskey/gifts).



> For PhynixCasey, whose letter said Circus AU. I hope you like it!

Legolas loves this moment, just before everything explodes into action and crowds and noise. It's just before sunset, so the light that filters through the walls of his tent is tainted with pink and orange, like it too is passing through the rainbow on its path from white to dark. He's sitting on the ground, separated from the dirt by a woven mat made by the weavers and given to him as a parting gift when he'd chosen to leave Taur-nu-Fuin and go into the world. The dried leaves and grasses have lasted him for many days, and it is still strong and supple, hardy, and sometimes, when he's deep into his meditative state, he can just smell the dirt and the rain and the fermenting berries, like home is not too far away and if he just listened, he would hear his father calling for him to come out of the mud.

 

In the stillness he sits, already in costume; his hair is braided away from his face and falls down his back, gently moving over his skin as the breeze flits through the open door and the gap between the tent and the ground. The ground has just started to groan from the coming crowd and the rushed, measured movements of the crew. He closes his eyes to the fading, dancing light and directs his thoughts inward, looking for a memory, the scent of home to guide him into a trance. Today it is easy, because it is opening night; he is not exhausted, nothing has gone wrong to cloud his mind with worry, he is still excited about the new routine and the new theme. He breathes out, and loses himself. 

He can see himself flying between the trees, leaping gracefully from branch to branch without looking, feeling the wind lifting him as he jumps and twists, buoying him as he reaches for the next one. He remembers how easy it was to him, as simple as walking, and he asks the trees to lend him their strength for tonight. He draws on his fëa, imagining it as a green ball at his centre of gravity, like a cracked seed that sends shoots growing through his arms and legs, strong and flexible. He imagines it as a light that surrounds him and then melts through his skin to fill him with warmth.

He opens his eyes and feels it still, an awareness in his fingers and toes and every sinuous curve of muscle under his skin. There are no injuries, yet, so he rises smoothly and moves into his stretches. The rest of the cast stretch together, but he does this alone; he focuses on his rectus femoralis and vestus lateralis, on his extensors and biceps brachii, until he feels his arms and legs as loose and limber as if they were free of gravity.

"You ready?" a low, gravelly voice says from the tent door, and Legolas looks up, remembering to smile.

"Yes," he says, and Drizzt joins him. They go through resistance stretches without talking; Legolas pushes on Drizzt's ankles and when he lets go, marvels at how his legs shift forward a few inches as if pulled by a string. They have been working on this; Drizzt wasn't raised as Legolas was, and his flexibility was weaker as a result. It wasn't a problem for the choreography, but Drizzt had been determined to match Legolas as best he could, and Legolas had learned to respect that. He had been raised to be wary of Dark Elves, but Drizzt had dispelled the myths and stories with his work ethic and dry humour. He also valued the silence and his connection to the earth and the trees, and Legolas had learned to be thankful for his casting, even if they both agreed that it was a gimmick to put them together.

It was a gimmick that worked for them, for as much as Legolas helped Drizzt with flexibility and the accompanying grace and fluidity, Legolas had also learned how to imbue his beats with an edge that belied strength and ferocity.

 

"Ten minutes," came the call over the radio, and Drizzt pulled Legolas up from the ground, where he had been loosening the femoral and saphenous nerves. 

"Let's do this," he said, and Legolas nodded. They walked side-by-side from Legolas' tent to the back of the Big Top and took their place behind the ring, still isolated from the rest of the cast, who as ordinary Men were happy to keep their distance, as if Drizzt might pull a knife on them any moment. As if he had room for one, in his Skins and unitard. Drizzt did not even have sequins sewn into his, for his unitard was white, shot with silver threads that gleamed under the lights. It sat against his dark skin like it was painted on. Legolas was the one who had sequins, for his costume was a matching unitard in green so dark it would appear black, and he had had to sew the sequins on himself, making a starburst flare from his hips as if to continue the line from the low back up over his chest. But nobody was afraid of him; he had travelled with them long enough that they forgot he started as an archer, before they saw he could fly like he was born with wings.

 

Drizzt takes his hand, squeezes it once, and Legolas imagines, for a moment, his fëa spiralling around their hands and twisting around the dark, sparkled ball of Drizzt's soul. They won't be able to see each other in the ring, but Legolas will always know where Drizzt is, not because they have spent weeks with the choreographer practicing each step, each transition, until they know it by reflex and muscle memory and the sound of each other's breathing, not because the music lifts and spins them with each phrase, but because Legolas can sense Drizzt across the ring from the way his soul, normally locked down behind Drizzt's learned defences, is freed and dances with joy. They both enjoy this, the chance to move as they once did, when they were young, even if it is for the amusement of Men.

 

The music changes, from a light, airy cantata through an instrumental bridge, and Drizzt lets go. Legolas is still for a moment as he pictures the ring, placing the silks on their tracks and his marks on the temporary flooring before he runs to his place. The bridge fades into a beat, drums and bass and _one, two, three_ in his mother's voice, and Legolas follows the spotlight into the ring. Drizzt is there, a beat before him, and Legolas lets the music take over. He runs forward, catches the silk and lifts himself up into the sky, until he is high enough that the crowd no longer matters. He dances with his eyes closed, trusting that the silks will hold him as the trees once did, that Drizzt's hands will be there when he leans back, holding the silk with one leg hooked ready to tumble to the ground. They represent twilight, here, for Legolas is the sun, golden and warm, and he gives himself over to the moon, as Drizzt catches him, being the fulcrum for his twists as he spins to the ground. They move together, for only a moment, and in that moment there is a sensation that was never there in rehearsal. Legolas opens his eyes, as if expecting to see the sparks between them, but there are only the spotlights, still, white and blue dancing across the white of Drizzt's hair. In between each step they hang as if suspended out of time, where the only things that really matter are that their breathing is in sync, exhilaration and exhaustion playing at the edges of each breath as they look at each other. Legolas feels heat where their bodies meet, as if Drizzt is moving with an intensity beyond his usual, and he responds by leaning into the touches and pushing himself away as if using Drizzt's chest as a springboard. He almost feels sorrow as it is time to boost Drizzt up onto the silks, but as the spotlights move away from him, he sees them catch and bounce off Drizzt's braids, braided with silver ribbon to break the whiteness, and he finally gets the concept behind this dance; it becomes for him something more than a performance, a challenge to be mastered and presented.

 

He goes still as the music stops, as the lights go down, and doesn't move until Drizzt shimmies down the silk and jumps, effortlessly, to the ground. They leave the ring on separate sides and Legolas, suddenly surrounded by rushing dancers, the costume mistress, her assistants, and the choreographer, fears losing this heady new sensation. But Drizzt is there; it's his hand on Legolas' back, cool on Legolas' skin, and it's his voice telling them they'll have the costumes ready for cleaning shortly, but they need a drink. 

A drink would be good, Legolas thinks, dizzily; he can feel now the burning in his arms, where he's burned away the strength and is left with the residue, a buildup of acid that replicates the loose feeling from before but clouds it with fatigue. 

"Drink," says Drizzt, and Legolas takes the soda gratefully. Drizzt has seen this before, and is the same; they forewent the post-dress rehearsal pizza for soda and salad in the town, though Drizzt had eaten two servings of lamb on couscous as well. Legolas had picked at his, still preferring to stay away from the flesh of animals he had not personally hunted and thanked for their sacrifice. Drizzt had not laughed, not like the giggles and whispers Legolas had always heard when he left for his solo meals, and Legolas realises, as his head clears, that this had started back then. 

They go back to Legolas' tent, since as a new performer, Drizzt has to share; they strip and hang their costumes and Drizzt pulls the salve from Legolas' kit. "Let me," he says, and Legolas lies down gratefully. He makes the salve himself, still, the way his mother had taught him before she died; he gets the leaves and oils sent to one of the regular stops and spends one of the off days preparing enough to last the tour. It grounds him, partly, but it relieves the last of the ache after a show and protects him from injury. Drizzt has not done this for him before, but he knows where to spend more time; Legolas feels the tightness and the burning and his back fade as if Drizzt was drawing it out with his hands, and the smell of belladonna and arnica makes the tent smell like a glade. 

Legolas wonders, as Drizzt moves away, whether he felt the same thing.

"We have to go back," Drizzt says, and Legolas sighs. He grabs his show robes, green like his unitard, and slides them on over his Skins, abandoning the idea of a tunic underneath. He does not want anything between him and sleep when they have taken their bows. After a quick trip to Drizzt's tent to get his robes, they return the costumes to the rack for cleaning and slip back behind the ring. It's quieter now; the finale requires most of the cast, and there is nobody to comment on how Drizzt lets Legolas lean into his side, almost asleep on his shoulder. Legolas is content here; the moment before final curtain, before heading out to face the crowd and its overwhelming wall of incoherent noise, is another one of his favourites, for it's now that he can imagine this night stretching out forever, the lassitude and accomplishment building under his skin until he's almost content. With Drizzt there, however, as opposite as they are, it is more complete; he gets to be like this, relaxed and cared for and still as proud and strong as he has always been.

 

Legolas knows it's time to go before the music stops and the moment ends, and he stands, pulling himself from the half-asleep daze long enough to walk to the curtain. Drizzt is just behind him, but it is agreed, although they don't voice it, that this is not to be shared. They walk out under the lights as their names are called and raise their arms together; they join hands as they leave the stage, and finally, before it fades completely, Legolas follows Drizzt to a corner, away from the loud crush of performers moving to costume and props and their own tents, and leans into the kiss. Drizzt's robes, black and silver, feel silky under his hands, and beneath them he feels the way Drizzt's muscles are contracting and trembling. They do not have long before they have to give up their moment out of time, but Legolas knows how to stretch it; he learns the planes of Drizzt's chest with the tips of his fingers and the taste of Drizzt's mouth with his tongue, until the noise creeps into the shadow and surrounds them.

 

They join the opening night party only briefly, just for long enough to be seen and congratulated on their eight minutes, and then Legolas pulls Drizzt away; he knows the salve will not work on him, but he knows an all-night diner that serves deer meat, and that Drizzt doesn't want this to end either. It's his turn to look after Drizzt, and when off day comes, they can talk.

Until then, though, they have to protect this. The way Drizzt walks close beside him, brushing close with each step, and the way Drizzt's soul still sits just in reach of his fëa tells Legolas that they are in agreement on this. It's enough, for now. 

They will make it so.


End file.
